How autism and gender identity collide

A matter of Pride

Photo by Jiroe (Matia Rengel) on Unsplash

When my son, Carson, was 13, he told me he was non-binary and wanted to go by they/them pronouns going forward. This revelation came out of nowhere. Adapting to Carson’s new budding identity was a learning curve, but I love my child so it was never a choice. Just an adjustment.

I watched as Carson cycled through a phase of wearing eye liner and eye shadow to school, and eventually graduated to dyeing part of their hair blue and wearing coloured bandanas. At one point they wanted to borrow one of my dresses…

In spite of this, I never suspected my child was transgender because, as I understand it, transgender individuals know they are trans from a tender age. That wasn’t the case with Carson. Not once did my little boy express that he wanted to be a girl or that he felt his “outside” didn’t match his “inside.”

It was more that my teen didn’t always feel like a guy—or at least not the narrow definition of a guy that society had constructed. What my kid wanted was an identity that truly, snugly fit.

Later, Carson admitted they wanted attention. They wanted to look pretty because they wanted to be liked by their peers (which, at the time, was a group of girls). So, were these attempts at fitting in rather than expressions of an innate identity?

Over the past few years I stood back and watched as my child fumbled toward an identity of their own. This chrysalis involved changing their first name not once but twice (fun times for the folks at school!). It was all part of the process. Fine, I said but wait to change it legally until you’re 18 to be sure this is still what you want.

On some level, I could relate to this seeking. As an androgynous teen and keen thrifter, I wore both men and women’s clothing; I wore clothes as costumes and never felt myself to be girly. But in my case this rejection of the “feminine” was at least partly informed by the sensory discomforts of women’s clothing and shoes… My seeking wasn’t a big deal because society (then and now) is more forgiving of females who bend gender norms. And I didn’t know it then, but bending gender norms is just what we autists do.

The research is clear: autistic people are much more likely to be gender diverse and vice versa. Why? The jury’s out. We still don’t really know. What we do know: we identify less and “have fewer positive feelings” about our assigned gender, which can lead to Gender discomfort (GDC), particularly in those assigned female at birth. Research also suggests that assigned males at birth who exhibit more “autistic social-communication traits” tend to have greater gender incongruence.

What Carson was experiencing was certainly a form of GDC. As a parent, this is a tricky spot to be in. Stressful—not because I cared one way or another about Carson’s gender but because other people cared. I am naive but not that naive. I know gender identity is directly tied to a person’s safety in the world, putting my kid at a greater risk of being victimized. In fact, transgender men, cisgender women, non-binary individuals, and transgender women who are autistic all report higher rates of interpersonal trauma and sexual violence, as well as higher rates of “ableist and sexist discrimination, severe gendered harassment, exclusion, and threats” than cisgender men.

I wanted my child to be true to themselves. But above all, I wanted them to be safe. That’s a mother’s instinct. So, how do you reconcile the two in a world that is increasingly intolerant of differences?

Fast-forward to age 16. Carson recently decided he is no longer non-binary. He now identifies as cisgender male and is back to using he/him pronouns. He is also going by his given name again, and has adopted a hair and clothing style in keeping with a “masculine” identity.

As parents, we did not preempt this change. In fact, we didn’t see it coming any more than we did the last one.

Finding yourself is hard. It has always been hard. These decisions were not mine to make. As concerned as I was, I made sure Carson knew that I loved and accepted him no matter what he wore or what he called himself. (Although I was secretly glad he went back to his given name for sentimental reasons. I chose it, after all.)

Turns out, he just needed time and a soft place to land while he figured it out.